


Road Trip to End Times

by VelkynKarma



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Based off organ trail, Blood, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Injury, Language, No Character Death, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, discussions of mercy killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9134266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: The outbreak is at its peak, and the country is in ruins. But there's still hope: Safe Haven, the colony on the West Coast. Reach it, and you'll find safety and a chance to rebuild a new life in this zombie-controlled world. If you reach it, that is.But Shiro doesn't intend to give up on trying. Not when he's got four teenagers desperate to find their families again under his protection.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. This is part of a challenge I did on Tumblr, where I played Organ Trail as our five favorite paladins and opened up requests for turning some of those scenes into fics. (And also some I wrote just for funsies). This is a collection of those pieces.
> 
> That challenge is also still going! If you want to see some other scenes written, check out the rules:  
> http://velkynkarma.tumblr.com/post/155002740233/velkynkarma-velkynkarma-who-likes-zombies
> 
> To the apocalypse!

Shiro steps out of the woods around one in the afternoon, feeling tired but satisfied.   
  
He’d picked the perfect time to go scavenging, when the zombie hordes were the least active. The backpack slung over his shoulder is full of supplies he’s managed to scavenge from a few old shacks hidden too far back from the road to be immediately visible, and he’d only encountered two zombies. He’d dispatched both silently without needing to use the rifle in his hand, which means the noise won’t have attracted any others that might be in the area. All in all, it’s been a successful mission.  
  
He can see the station wagon and his four traveling companions not too far distant, and makes his way towards where he left them. It’s only been a week and a half since Shiro first took to the road with four teenagers, bound for Safe Haven. He’s starting to learn each individual’s specific skills and weaknesses, and become more familiar with all of them. But until he’s fully confident in their abilities to handle zed combat, and has a chance to supervise and train each of them in self defense and with their available weaponry, he’s not about to let them come on scavenging and scouting trips.  
  
Still, each one has taken to the tasks he _has_ set for them reasonably well, he thinks. He can see Keith feeding a small fire a safe distance from the car, which means he’s probably working on boiling the water to keep it sanitary. No way to know what’s in water these days, so better to err on the side of caution.   
  
Pidge and Hunk are huddled together near one side of the car, bending over something as they point at it and gesture. Hunk has a few pieces of scrap metal in his hands, which he seems to be surveying for…something. Shiro honestly isn’t sure.  
  
Lance is perched on top of the station wagon, facing away from the others with the second rifle carefully in his hands, pointed at the pavement. Of all of them, Lance already has the most proficiency with firearms outside of Shiro himself, which comes (so he says) from his participation in a paintball league. Wherever he learned the skills, Shiro’s already learned the kid is a dead shot with a rifle, which usually means the second gun is left with him if Shiro needs to leave them for any span of time. In time, when the others are trained better as well, Lance might be very helpful in scavenging—for now, he’s the most qualified candidate to be on watch.  
  
Lance is clearly paying attention to the roads, but he also appears to be chattering away, and as Shiro gets close enough he starts to make out the words. “—bout chainsaws all over the front? We could totally just bust through zombies then, right?”  
  
“Sounds cool in theory, but kinda useless in practice,” Hunk says, scratching his head. “How would you fuel it? It’d take up extra gas, and there’s way more to maintain.”  
  
“Cleaning it’d be a nightmare too,” Pidge adds. “Probably more trouble than it’s worth.”  
  
“Swords, then,” Lance says insistently, not looking over his shoulder but clearly invested in the conversation. “Stick a whole bunch of pointy metal on the front, that’ll do it, right?”  
  
“What’s going on here?” Shiro asks, frowning, as he reaches them and sets the heavy backpack down on the ground. He rolls his shoulder absently, loosening the muscle after the heavy bag’s straps had dug into it, and everyone else winces at the sharp _crack_ it makes.  
  
“Hate when you do that,” Pidge grumbles. “Sounds gross.”  
  
“Sorry,” Shiro says absently. “But really, what’s going on? I thought you and Hunk were supposed to be looking into the noise the muffler was making?”  
  
“Oh, we’ve already taken care of that, Shiro, no worries,” Hunk says. “It should run smoothly now. We even managed to salvage the part, so we won’t need to replace it yet.”  
  
“We’re thinking up ways to upgrade Voltron now,” Lance says brightly, still not turning around. “I vote for chainsaws in the front, but they don’t agree with me.”  
  
“Hunk’s right, it’d take too much fuel to keep it going,” Shiro says automatically. Then he pauses as Lance’s words catch up with his brain. “Wait, Voltron?”  
  
Pidge and Hunk stare at him, like they’re not sure what the question is. Shiro eyes Keith, and the teenager just gives a tired shrug, as if to say, _How the hell should I know?_  
  
“Yes, Voltron,” Lance says. “If we can’t do the chainsaws, I still think swords would be cool. Not as cool as guns, but that’d be even harder to pull off I bet.”  
  
“Back up,” Shiro says, still lost. “Voltron? That’s the station wagon?”  
  
“That’s the station wagon’s _name,_ ” Lance says, as if this was obvious.  
  
Keith looks incredulous. “that’s a nineteen eighty-seven LTD Crown Victoria Country Squire,” he says after a moment. “How the hell do you get ‘voltron’ out of that?”  
  
“Wow. Way to be a car nerd,” Lance snorts. Keith’s eye twitches, which Shiro is already learning is a sure sign that a spat between these two is imminent, but before it can get much farther Lance says, “I’m not talking about the model, I’m talking about the car’s _name_.” And when that doesn’t get a further response, he finally looks over his shoulder for a moment and says in exasperation, “Oh, for…look. _There_.” And he takes one hand off the rifle to point at the front of the vehicle.  
  
Shiro and Keith exchange glances, and both pace around to the front. Shiro is half expecting to see something carved in the hood or written on its dusty surface, but after a moment he spots it: the station wagon’s Massachusetts license plate, with **V01TRN** stamped into its surface.   
  
Shiro stares at it for a moment, and then tilts his head curiously and offers a contemplative “Huh.”   
  
They’d been driving for over a week and he’d honestly never even noticed the plate. The one in the back was long gone; he’d noticed that much while offloading supplies into it. The only noticeable details left were the half dozen _Detroit Lions_ bumper stickers plastered all over the back, which basically only told Shiro the unfortunate previous owner of the vehicle had been a major football fan.   
  
There’s a very long moment of silence. Keith stares at the plate, then at the others, as if to say, _Really?_   
  
After a moment, Shiro finally asks, “How do you know the one isn’t an ‘i’?”  
  
“ _Because,_ Shiro,” Lance says, with the air of someone trying very hard to sound patient when they’re actually exasperated with a very dumb younger sibling, “ ‘Voitron’ doesn’t sound as cool. Obviously.”  
  
Pidge and Hunk nod solemnly in agreement.   
  
“But it’s just a license plate!” Keith sputters, bewildered. “Why do you even care what it sounds like?”  
  
“Because this baby is taking us all the way to Safe Haven, and she needs a badass name,” Lance says confidently. “And Voltron sounds badass. Like a space ship.”  
  
“Or a super cool sci-fi weapon,” Pidge adds brightly.  
  
“Or a Transformer!” Hunk adds, looking thrilled. “Imagine her turning into an awesome robot and just _punching_ zombies into oblivion! Autobots, roll out!”  
  
“This car is almost thirty years old,” Keith says, staring at them all like they’ve lost their minds. “I don’t think it’s transforming into anything.”   
  
“Not with that attitude she won’t,” Lance says with a scoff. “Anyway, that’s why we’re trying to come up with upgrades. Gotta start somewhere, right?”  
  
“I think going defense might be better,” Hunk says. “Armored windows, maybe armored sides, if we can get enough scrap metal to do it. Prevent anything from, uh, reaching in.”  
  
“That sounds like a good idea,” Pidge agrees. She scribbles something down on the notepad in her hands, which Shiro now realizes is what the two of them had been huddling over to begin with. “What about solar panels? I think I can rig something to keep us moving even if we run out of fuel. Nothing will stop Voltron then.”   
  
“Write it down, but the parts might be hard to get,” Hunks says. “We’ll have to see if we can scavenge anything for it along the way.”  
  
“Let me know what you need and I can keep an eye out,” Shiro says, walking back around the car to his bag again. He hefts it once more, heads for the back of the vehicle, and cracks it open, starting to unload the scavenged food and single medkit he was lucky enough to find. Surveying their other supplies, he adds on impulse, “Can you do something about that battery? We don’t have a spare, and God only knows how old the one we’ve got now is. I’d rather not rely on trading with strangers. Voltron needs a more reliable power source.”   
  
Pidge, Hunk, and Lance all give him gleeful looks. Keith stares at him with a betrayed look on his face, and sputters, “Wh- _what?_ ”   
  
And Shiro just shrugs, as if to say, _What’re you gonna do?_ If they want to name the damn car, who is he to say no? It makes them happy, and there’s precious little of that going around these days with a nuclear fallout and the walking dead roaming the entire countryside. Anything that gives them even a little peace of mind and something to focus on besides the rampant doom and gloom around them is a good thing.  
  
And besides, Lance had been right. ‘Voltron’ does sound kind of badass.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not just the undead that are a danger in the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand I should crosspost another of these too I guess. Based off this post:  
> http://velkynkarma.tumblr.com/post/154994460033/oh-shit-oh-shit-dont-miss-shiro-phew-the
> 
> Today is Lance Day I guess.

They’d only stopped for a minute.  
  
They’ve been dealing with torrential downpours for the past few hours, and travel slows to a crawl. The roads aren’t flooded, but they are slick with rain, with massive puddles at random intervals, and Shiro is forced to drive very carefully to avoid getting the old station wagon stuck.  
  
So when they start hearing a clunking noise in the back, even over the occasional thunder and lightning, Shiro knows it had to be dealt with pronto. One of the tires had probably picked up something in the puddles, or they’d hit something without realizing it.   
  
So they'd stopped. Just for a few minutes. It hadn’t been pleasant for any of them, but they needed to ensure the station wagon was in working condition, enough to get them all the way to Safe Haven.   
  
Hunk and Pidge huddle on the far side of the car while trying to identify the issue, trying to stay as much out of the rain as possible. Lance helps where he can, mostly by wedging a blanket into one of the doors and holding up the other end to create a makeshift cover against the rain for the mechanics and their tools. Keith and Shiro keep watch as best as they can, although with visibility as terrible as it is, it’s hard to see very far in any direction.   
  
All of them are soaked through in minutes. Shiro makes a mental note to keep an eye on them for the next day or two, just in case. They’d already gotten sick a few times on the journey. Getting soaked to the bone won’t help matters any.  
  
He almost doesn’t hear Keith’s shout over the next roll of thunder. Almost. But if a zombie outbreak did anything, it was make one paranoid and hyper-aware, especially when one found themselves responsible for four other lives.  
  
Shiro whips around, rifle already raised to his shoulder, fully expecting to see several undead monstrosities lurching out of the hills towards their prey. And he does see several new silhouettes in the dark. But none of them have the lurching gait and misshapen, twisted limbs of the walking dead. These are real, living humans.  
  
And one of them has Lance.   
  
He’s got Lance in a chokehold, arm so tight Lance can’t shake his grip. Lance’s arms both clutch at the man’s, trying to free himself or at least loosen the grip enough that he can breathe. Shiro can’t hear his gasping from here, but he can tell from the way Lance’s chest heaves that he’s having difficulty getting enough air. The man is actually slightly shorter than Lance is, too, which forces Lance to crouch awkwardly, feet slipping slightly on the wet pavement.   
  
In the flash of lightning behind him, Shiro sees the light glinting off of Lance’s wide, scared eyes, and off the barrel of the pistol in the man’s other hand, pointed at Lance’s temple.   
  
Shiro freezes in place, gun still aimed at the man holding Lance. Bandits. They’d probably been driven out of whatever hiding place they’d holed up in for the storm when they saw the station wagon’s headlights. It was too good a target to pass up.   
  
A quick glance from side to side finds two other bandits at the ready, one with a knife and the other with a baseball bat. These keep their distance, probably wary about being outnumbered, but Shiro can also make out smug expressions on their faces. They’re sure they’ve got this in the bag, with a hostage.  
  
Another quick glance assures Shiro that the rest are safe, at least. Hunk and Pidge are frozen against one of the tires, carefully not moving. Hunk has a wrench in one hand, although it won’t be much use unless the fight gets too close for comfort. Keith stands defensively near them, his favorite knife drawn, although he’s frozen in place at the stalemate. Hunk looks scared; Pidge and Keith look livid.   
  
There’s silence for a long moment, other than the rumble of thunder. Everyone is assessing. Shiro can feel his heart thudding painfully in his chest at how close he is to losing at least one of them. More, if he doesn’t play this right.   
  
Out of the corner of his eye he spots the tiniest movement as Keith shifts his weight and grips his knife tighter, disguising it in the whipping rain. Shiro shakes his head warningly, just barely. Not enough for the bandits to notice, but something Keith certainly will. Keith catches it, and does not look happy, but he stills again.   
  
Shiro appreciates the willingness to throw himself into combat to defend his travel mates, but now isn’t the time for a suicidal charge. Keith is fast, but not faster than the bullet in the gun pressed to Lance’s head. He won’t make it in time. And he’d probably get hurt on top of it.  
  
“Sh…shiro?” Lance chokes, voice shaking. He sounds terrified. Helpless. As Shiro watches, he tries to claw at the bandit’s arm again, struggling to loosen it enough to at least breathe properly. “Shiro…help…”  
  
And just like that, Shiro finds his nerves vanishing. He doesn’t have time to be scared for himself. Lance needs him _now._  
  
“Stalemate,” Shiro yells across to the bandit holding Lance. “Put him down and I’ll let you walk away. That’s a one time offer.”  
  
The man’s answer is to duck further behind Lance, using his hostage as a human shield, until only a fraction of his head and one eye is left to keep an eye on the proceedings. “You can’t make that shot,” he scoffs.   
  
He’s probably right. It’s not an easy shot to make on a good day, much less in partial darkness with the wind and rain whipping at them. There’s a very high chance he could hit Lance instead. Ironically, the one best suited to making the shot is Lance himself, who’s displayed an unexpected knack for firearms and hitting difficult targets.   
  
But Lance can’t take this shot now. And he’s relying on Shiro to save him.  
  
“You’ll kill your friend,” the bandit continues. “Or I will. _Unless_ you back away from the car and leave us your suppl—“  
  
Shiro fires.   
  
Lance and the bandit both jerk back at the impact. The man doesn’t even get a chance to scream before he collapses backwards, half dragging Lance with him as his arm loosens. Lance stumbles to the left as he trips over the man’s legs, before collapsing on his hands and knees, coughing violently.   
  
Before either of them even stop moving, Shiro already has the rifle aimed at the second of the bandits, the one with the knife. Keith darts forward through the rain to plant himself firmly between Lance and the final bandit, knife raised, expression grim.   
  
“Back. Off,” Shiro growls, low and warning.   
  
The remaining bandits hold up their hands, and the one with the bat drops it. They back away slowly, and after a few seconds, turn on their heels and disappear into the hills.   
  
Shiro doesn’t let himself feel relief. They’re not out of danger yet. “They might come back with friends,” he warns, lowering the rifle but never taking his eyes away from the direction the bandits disappeared into. “Hunk, Pidge, can the car move?”  
  
Hunk has moved from the car to Lance as soon as the bandits turned tail, but Pidge is still crouching next to the tire, working on it furiously. “One sec,” she says. “We almost had it when we got interrupted— _there_.” There’s a satisfying metal clunk, and she pulls some sort of scrap metal out from beneath the vehicle from where it had been lodged.   
  
“Good. Everyone in the car, we’re leaving. _Now.”_   
  
Pidge starts throwing their tools in the back of the station wagon, and Keith darts in to help her. Hunk and Lance remain where they are, still crouched on the pavement. Lance’s coughing has progressed to throwing up, as he empties his stomach miserably onto the asphalt while Hunk rubs his back. The pitiful contents of his stomach get washed away almost immediately by runoff rain.   
  
“Hunk,” Shiro says firmly. “Car. Now. I’ll get Lance.”   
  
Hunk nods, eyes wide, and heads for the station wagon. Shiro crouches down next to Lance, and after one last glance in the bandits’ direction, looks to the teenager instead. He keeps his tone straightforward but as gentle as possible. “Hey, buddy, we need to get moving now, okay?”  
  
Lance’s heaving appears to have stopped. He wipes his mouth after a moment, and then glances up at Shiro, looking shaken and a little awed. “N…nice shot,” he stammers after a moment. His hand his shaking when he reaches up to the side of his head, and his fingers come away red. Blood, but not his own, and the downpours have already washed half of it away.   
  
“I wasn’t going to let him hurt you,” Shiro says firmly. “Any of you.” Because he’d known the bandits’ offer was a lie. They wouldn’t be spared after handing over their car and gear. At best they’d be shot right away. At worst they’d be left stranded with no supplies in bandit and zombie country, left to die slowly. It wasn’t an option to Shiro, not for a second.   
  
He’s going to take them home. He’s going to make sure they stay _safe._ He’s promised himself if no one else.   
  
Lance nods, still shaky, and glances to the side. The bandit’s body is only a couple feet away, and Shiro lets himself glance at his own work for the first time since he took the shot. It had been almost too good to be true—his bullet had gone straight through the man’s left eye, and now most of the left side of his face was just… _gone._ The water is already washing the gore away into the grass on the side of the road, but it’s still not a pleasant thing to look at by any means.  
  
Lance lurches again, and tries to throw up once more at the sight. Shiro feels his stomach twist a little at the sight of it himself, but forces his own discomfort down. _Not now. Lance needs you._   
  
“Okay, easy, buddy,” he says, moving so that he’s now in between Lance and the dead man. He shifts the rifle to his left hand, and places his right hand on Lance’s back until the kid stops heaving again. Lance doesn’t lose anything more than a little ropy string of bile, which is unfortunate—all that scavenged food gone to waste. None of them can really afford to lose the nutrients.  
  
Once Lance takes in a few gasping, shaky breaths, Shiro hooks his right hand under Lance’s left and heaves him up, wincing a little when it strains at the poorly healed break in his arm. Fortunately, Lance helps with his own weight, and pushes himself shakily to his feet. As they stand, Shiro glances back in the bandits’ direction again. Still nothing, but he won’t feel better about all of this until they’re miles away.   
  
“We’re gonna leave now, okay?” Shiro says, as he guides Lance towards the car. “And look, the others even gave you the front seat.” ‘Shotgun’ was the most prized spot in the entire car after the driver’s seat, and the four of them fought over it constantly. It was the most comfortable and the least squished together, with the best view. It said a lot about how worried the rest of them were that they’d left it for Lance.  
  
“G-great,” Lance says. He’s still clearly rattled by the experience, but trying to rally, and it looks like he’s stopped throwing up, at least. They’re almost at the car door when Lance adds almost meekly, “I know we gotta go, but…d’you…do you think we could stop somewhere soon so I can change? I can feel…”  
  
He doesn’t finish, but the way he scratches at his neck, Shiro knows he can still feel the trickles of blood and gore from the bandit’s head on his own skull, neck and shoulders, even if it looks like most of it’s been washed away. Shiro winces. This will be a lovely memory Lance will never be able to forget, he knows. “Sure,” he allows, as he levers the door open for Lance. “As soon as it’s safe. I promise.”   
  
Lance settles in, and Shiro darts around the car hastily, setting the rifle inside very carefully before throwing himself into the driver’s seat. In the rearview mirror he thinks he can see flashlights, and he shifts the station wagon into drive. He probably goes faster than is safe, kicking up sprays of water in the puddles and slipping a little on the asphalt, barely able to see in front of him, but he almost doesn’t care.  
  
They just have to get away. To where it’s safe, and these kids traveling with him aren’t in danger from the undead or their own fellow human beings. To where their families are, maybe.   
  
To just anywhere but here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna play the zombie prompt game hit me up at velkynkarma.tumblr.com cause I'm having more fun with these than expected and I wanna do more haha.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware the wildlife. It's really out to get you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between Parasite Knight and S2 dropping I totally forgot to cross post this third piece! Ahaha. Here it is now then.
> 
> Based off this post:   
> http://velkynkarma.tumblr.com/post/154996712978/velkynkarma-shiro-got-attacked-by-zombie-dogs
> 
> This one has a lot of blood, injury and sickness, be warned.

Shiro surveys the cave in the middle of the rocky hills and trees from a distance, very, very carefully.   
  
It still has traces of human habitation. He can see a discarded backpack, and there’s a fire pit. A group had likely been using the place to camp for the night while on their way to Safe Haven. But the pit looks days old, without any signs of recent fire, and there aren’t any tracks in the dirt that indicate recent human passage. Whoever had been here had probably left in a hurry, likely fleeing the walking dead.  
  
He considers. On the one hand, there’s a strong possibility supplies have been left behind that he can certainly use. They’re not exactly starving yet, but they are rationing strictly right now due to lacking an abundance of food. All four of the teens he’s traveling with are looking thinner than they should, and though they handle it fairly stoically (for teenagers), Shiro’s worried about their health if this goes on too long. They’ve already gotten sick, and they need whatever nutrition he can get for them. Every little extra bit is welcome.  
  
On the other hand, he’s already killed three zombies in the area. And he has no idea what these people might have fled from, assuming they escaped at all.   
  
But the sun is fairly high in the sky—it’s just barely noon—which means zombie activity should be relatively low right now. It’s currently quiet, and he’s armed and at the ready. He’ll never get a safer, better chance.   
  
So he makes his way carefully to the cave, moving low and stealthy just in case, rifle at the ready. When he gets there he isn’t sure why he bothered being so cautious. The cave is fairly shallow, and clearly empty of anything living or undead.  
  
It is, however, a treasure trove of supplies. There’s plenty of non-perishable goods, both canned and dried, as well as ammunition, some camping supplies, and a pair of medkits. Shiro’s struck gold. Whoever had been here had known what they were doing, and had definitely left in a rush to have left it all behind. If they haven’t come back for it after what’s clearly days of neglect, Shiro has a feeling they’re never going to, most likely because they’re dead.   
  
That’s definitely enough to send alarm bells through his mind—if whoever this was had been skilled enough to know how to stock up on supplies and still perished, it’s clear this place is dangerous. Shiro decides to grab what he can, head back for the car, and get them out of there right away.   
  
The abandoned backpack proves useful, as it’s larger than his own and definitely meant for hiking. He starts stuffing it full of the discovered supplies, and is pleasantly surprised to find a fifty dollar bill crumpled into the bottom of the bag as well. He stuffs that absently in his pocket. Out in the boondocks, where they are now, money is practically worthless. But it can still be used to purchase goods and services in the little makeshift shelters and settlements along the road to Safe Haven. It might help them get food or parts for the car at the next safe area. According to other travelers they’ve met along the way, there’s supposed to be one maybe four hundred miles or so ahead of them.   
  
The bag is nearly full when Shiro hears growling.  
  
He doesn’t hesitate, and abandons whatever’s left—still many of the food supplies, and one of the medkits. The backpack gets slung over one shoulder, and he raises the rifle as he heads out at a brisk pace, already searching for the threat.  
  
It’s not zombies. Not human ones, anyway. This isn’t much of a comfort to Shiro, as the undead dog lunging for him is arguably worse.   
  
Animals can also be infected by the plague, but while animals aren’t capable of spreading the infection to humans when they bite, they also don't suffer the same effects as humans, either. Human zombies are slow, uncoordinated, shambling messes. Animal zombies aren’t as fast or as athletic as their living counterparts, but they’re fast enough that standard zombie survival doesn’t apply to them, and that makes them very dangerous.   
  
Now Shiro knows why these campers had disappeared in such a hurry.  
  
He curses and swings the rifle around to fire as the beast crouches to leap. His aim is off in his rush, and he only manages to hit the thing in the shoulder, but it’s enough to slow it for a second. Shiro will take any chance he has, and bolts.   
  
That’s when the second undead dog leaps at him from the other side, uttering a loud, moaning howl as it pounces.  
  
Shiro twists at the last second, and the creature doesn’t hit him full on. But he feels its teeth gnashing as they drag a shallow furrow in his left shoulder, and it still as enough momentum to knock him over. He hits the ground, rolls awkwardly on the laden backpack, and skids to his knees in time to see the first undead dog bearing down on him again.  
  
He raises his rifle and fires point-blank into its head without even thinking about it.  
  
The creature stumbles, and its momentum slows, but amazingly, it still doesn’t go down. Shiro curses and manages to throw himself aside as it barrels past him, making the same eerie howling noises as its partner—  
  
 _The other one!_  
  
He gasps as the second dog slams into him from behind, snarling savagely. Shiro doesn’t feel the bite, but he is knocked over, and the rifle goes skidding out of his hands. He curses and scrambles for it, but the creature is heavy on his back, and tugging at the laden backpack from the feel of it—  
  
The strap on the found backpack rips, and the creature rolls off of him from the sudden snapback. Shiro takes the change to lunge forward on hands and knees and snatch the rifle up again, whipping around and putting it to his shoulder just in time to catch the first dog charging him again. He fires straight into its open mouth.  
  
Three shots is apparently, _finally,_ enough to bring the creature down. It jerks to an abrupt halt and slams to the packed dirt, skidding slightly from its own momentum.   
  
Shiro doesn’t take the time to enjoy his victory. The second dog has stopped savaging his stolen backpack, now that he’s no longer attached to it, and is lunging for him again.   
  
He throws himself aside, wincing as a tree root rams into his side when he slides on the ground from his crouch. The undead dog’s jaws snap shut just where Shiro’s throat had been.   
  
He fires again, and hits it in the side. It stumbles a moment from the momentum, but even so that hardly slows it. With a stunning amount of maneuverability for something so long dead, it twists on its warped paws and launches towards him again.  
  
He has no way to dodge, stretched out awkwardly on his side without any time to scramble to his feet. It’s on him before he can fire again. Its jaws open wide for his throat, but Shiro manages to raise his right arm enough to to shield his face and neck instead, and its teeth bury themselves in his right forearm.   
  
Shiro can’t help it—despite every bit of survival knowledge telling him to _stay as quiet as you can when the undead are present lest you bring more,_ he screams. His right arm has _already_ never healed properly from when he broke it at the start of the outbreak, and hurts enough in its own right without being injured further. But _this_ —he can feel the undead dog’s teeth grinding against bone, there’s already blood welling out of the wound, and God, his nerves are on _fire._   
  
The undead dog twists its head savagely, trying to tear deeper, and Shiro screams again. He can’t get the gun up to fire this close, and with only one hand, but he smashes it into the side of the creature’s head instead, and kicks with one leg, hoping to do something— _anything_ —to dislodge it.   
  
It does let go, but not easily; Shiro can _feel_ muscle tearing as its teeth slide out like knives. He grits his own teeth against the pain, and kicks it in the face again, forcing it to stumble back. In the fraction of a second he has he forces himself to his feet, and makes a staggering break for the abandoned bag of supplies. He probably can’t fight this thing now, not without a sidearm and not with his arm torn up like this, but he can run. And he’s _not_ losing his hard-won supplies, not when the rest of his charges need them so badly.   
  
He doesn’t make it to the bag. With a snarl, the undead dog gets back to its unsteady feet and throws itself at him. Shiro curses and raises his already wounded right arm to defend, and it fastens its teeth around a new spot on his arm, and _God_ it hurts so bad—  
  
Its momentum is too much for Shiro to bear, and he crashes over on his side. His head cracks against one of the many large rocks in the outcroppings scattered around the cave, and he gasps as he sees stars, and his vision starts to melt at the edges. The undead dog seizes its chance and pins him down with its weight, and Shiro curls up defensively, trying to protect anything vital as it snaps at him with its jaws.   
  
But his vision is going black, and his head is swimming, and he can feel blood trickling from the side of his head where he hit the rock. Feel teeth digging into his shoulder, struggling to reach his tucked in-neck. Feel any strength he had slipping out of his body as his mind starts to shut down.  
  
 _No!_ he thinks desperately. _No, no…don’t pass out now…you can’t pass out…not now…not…_  
  
He tries to force himself to rise, but the dog is so heavy on top of him as he’s curled on his side, and his head is pounding and his arm is screaming, and—  
  
 _This is it,_ he realizes, with a dulled sort of horror. _I’m done. I can’t…I won’t make it to…I can’t get…them to…_  
  
 _I’m sorry…oh God, I’m so sorry…_  
  


* * *

 

  
Keith stomps out the fire and stacks the last of the canteens to one side with the supplies they’ve unloaded. It’s only a little past noon, but they’ve all grown used to the routine of travel by now. Move during the early morning and evening hours, and sometimes in the night, depending on if there’s any place safe to stop or not. Forage during the midday hours, when zeds are less active, and also use that time for maintenance and chores.   
  
So Pidge and Hunk are hard at work making minor repairs to the car, which—thankfully—hasn’t broken down recently. Keith is taking care of their supplies, treating whatever water they’ve found, and doing whatever little odd tasks he can think of to make the journey a little easier. And Lance takes his customary perch on top of the stati— _Voltron,_ right—with their second rifle in hand, keeping a wary eye out for wandering zombies and potential living threats alike.  
  
“Where do you think we are right now?” Lance asks. “I haven’t seen any decent road signs since we left Memphis.”   
  
“No idea,” Pidge says. “We can check the GPS when we get going again. There’s still inhabited cities on the road to Safe Haven, but I have no idea which ones.”   
  
“Do we have enough fuel to keep going?” Keith asks, frowning. He doesn’t remember seeing very many canisters while digging around for the canteens in the back.   
  
“Depends on how far we need to go,” Hunk says, crossing his eyes as he does some sort of metal calculations. “I think if we’re careful and don’t drive too crazy we can hit another settlement easy enough. The other people we’ve met say there’s one on the way, right? Give or take four hundred miles?”  
  
“Hope they have decent showers,” Lance mutters. “No offense, but you all reek. Rainwater baths don’t do anything.”   
  
“You’re not exactly flower fresh yourself,” Pidge scoffs. “Anyway, the first thing I’m checking when we get there is the bulletin boards.” Major settlements sometimes had places where messages from previous travelers could be found, or written for loved ones and friends that were (hopefully) following. There was always a chance that her brother or father had passed that way, and if they had, it was possible they’d left some sort of message behind for the rest of their family.   
  
“I just want to see fresh food again,” Hunk says. “Anything that doesn’t come out of a can. Maybe they’ve grown some stuff, if this place is stable. I’ll even take spices, just to add a little flavor to our supplies.”   
  
Hunk’s stomach growls, and they all wince in sympathy. They’re not starving exactly, but their food supplies have been stretching thinner, which is why Shiro’s called for a halt today to search for more. Any food at all would be welcome. Keith tires to ignore his own grumbling stomach.   
  
The three of them look at Keith expectantly—even Lance spares him a glance for a moment from his watch. Keith blinks, but he honestly doesn’t really know _what_ he’s looking forward to at the settlements. Unlike the rest of them, he doesn’t really have any family he’s trying to get back to, or any reason to head for Safe Haven at all, other than the obvious desire to _not_ die or become a shambling corpse. The apocalyptic road trip isn’t exactly all bells and whistles, but after seeing the world burning the settlements almost feel like too _many_ people. They’re all stuffed with desperate survivors, and Keith always has the feeling he needs to watch his back when he’s there. The road’s not pleasant, but at least he knows he can trust his four traveling companions not to stab him in the back with his own knife and steal what few possessions he has.  
  
But they won’t take that for an answer—in fact it would probably drag out _pity_ , which he hates. He opens his mouth to give some half-assed answer about maybe checking out if there are any interesting weapons for sale that might be more useful in close combat than his knife—  
  
—and is interrupted by a gunshot, and an eerie, moaning howl that pierces the air.  
  
All four of them freeze, and exchange uneasy glances. “Was that a wolf? That didn’t sound like a wolf,” Hunk says, looking anxious.  
  
“It’s no wolf I’ve ever heard,” Keith says, frowning.  
  
Another howl cuts the air, similar to the first, and there are more gunshot noises. Lance’s hands tense on his own rifle, and all four of them glance around wildly, searching for the source of the sounds.  
  
Then they hear the scream—faint, distant, but undeniably Shiro.   
  
There’s one stunned moment as all four of them stare at each other, eyes wide. Then there’s a flurry of motion as they break into action.   
  
Keith darts for the last direction they saw Shiro leave in, already drawing his knife, yelling over his shoulder, “Pidge, get our gear in the car, hurry!” Pidge needs no instruction—she’s already hurling all of their tools in their box and gathering whatever supplies they’ve scattered around the car together for a quick exit. Lance vaults off Voltron’s roof with rifle in hand and bolts after Keith, looking scared but ready for action. And Hunk runs after them, looking terrified, although Keith isn’t sure if it’s because of the danger they’re running into, or because of the danger Shiro is already in.  
  
They plow into the tree line at the edge of the road, blowing caution to the wind as they dart through trees too fast and loud to be considered ‘zombie travel appropriate.’ Shiro would throw a fit if he could see them and give them the mother of all lectures, but Keith will take it, as long as Shiro’s alive to give them that lecture. Lance and Hunk trail just behind him, following in his footsteps as he finds the quickest path through the trees, leaping over roots and around the big rocks that are scattered all over this area.  
  
The trees thin after several minutes of running, giving way to more rocks, and Keith is frankly stunned at how far Shiro managed to get. Then they break into a slightly more open area, and Keith gets his first glance of Shiro since their unofficial leader left over an hour ago.   
  
Shiro, and the savage beast crouching over his limp, unmoving form.   
  
Keith’s never seen anything like this before. It looks vaguely like a wolf and is about the size of one, but its fur is a sickly green, and falling out in patches everywhere. Its limbs are misshapen and twisted, and Keith can see some of its bones exposed, and a few blackened insides. Its eyes are sunken and dark, and there’s no life in them. It’s a dog, but definitely not a living one anymore.   
  
Its teeth are fastened around Shiro’s right shoulder. Even as they stumble onto the scene, it shakes savagely, and Shiro flops like a rag doll, not resisting. The jostling exposes his throat, and with a howl the creature releases his shoulder and lunges for the kill.   
  
_“No!”_ Keith yells, eyes wide. He can’t make it in time—  
  
—but Lance can, and even as the creature lunges, Lance sights it down the barrel of his rifle and fires.  
  
The dog snarls as it jerks back, stumbling awkwardly on its misshapen legs from the impact of the bullet in its head. But it doesn’t go down, and unbelievably, it bares its teeth as it sights them and darts straight for the trio. It makes the long, eerie howling noise again as it runs. This close, it’s so much louder and creepier, and it sends ice down Keith’s spine.   
  
“You hit it in the head, why isn’t it dead?” Hunk yelps, eyes wide. “Zombies are supposed to die from headshots! Why isn’t it dead?”  
  
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Lance stammers, equally wide-eyed and horrified. It takes him a second to register that his textbook-perfect zombie kill shot was not, in fact, all that perfect, and by that point the thing is halfway towards them.  
  
“Look out—“ Keith hisses, raising his knife defensively.   
  
But Lance recovers after a moment of panic, and although he’s still got the same stunned, horrified expression on his face, his hands are almost perfectly still as he sights the creature again and fires a second time.   
  
This shot, too, takes the creature square in the head. This seems to be enough this time, however, and it crashes to the ground, skidding to a stop a bare ten feet from them. Lance immediately trains the gun on it again, just in case it decides to get up and jump at them once more. But it doesn’t move, and after a moment Keith steps forward and kicks it in the side. No reaction.  
  
“Dead,” he proclaims. “Again,” he adds, as an afterthought.  
  
“Shiro!” Hunk yells, and circles around the now-fully-dead wolf-thing to run for the body some distance away. Lance and Keith both run after him, concern on their faces now that the immediate threat is dealt with.  
  
When they get closer, Keith feels a wave of dismay. Shiro does not look good. There’s blood on the rock beneath his head, and it looks like he hit it badly. He’s curled on his left side, and his right arm is…it’s bad. _Really_ bad. His shirt sleeve is torn to shreds and bloodied, as are the bandages he keeps habitually wrapped around his forearm beneath. The creature’s bitten him several times, and none of those bites are clean; the flesh looks ragged and torn. Keith is pretty sure he sees bone for at least one of them. The bites extend up his arm to his shoulder, where smaller gashes around his collarbone seem to indicate the creature was desperately struggling to reach his neck. Several smaller cuts and scrapes decorate his right side, where the undead animal had clearly been pawing at him and gouged him with its claws. There’s blood everywhere.  
  
He looks so _broken._ It doesn’t seem _right_ to Keith. Shiro’s the strongest of all of them, and an eternal survivor. He’s the only person Keith has ever heard of managing to walk out of the fallout zone alive after being trapped in it for months. He’s kept them going for weeks and stayed strong through all of it. Seeing him like this is just…it’s _terrifying._  
  
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Hunk stammers. “Shiro, oh God, what do we do—“  
  
“Um, guys?” Lance isn’t staring at Shiro; he’s looking off to their right, and his voice has a tremor of fear in it. “We gotta go. Like, _yesterday._ ”  
  
Keith follows his gaze, and his heart drops to his stomach. There’s several zombies lurching out of the trees and rocky outcroppings, and another pair of the undead dogs. They must have been attracted by all the noise.   
  
“Can you bring some down?” Keith asks, a faint edge of desperation to his tone, as the dogs start to rush forward. Lance is already on it, and manages to shoot one in the leg, enough to cause it to crash to the ground. It struggles to rise and isn’t even close to dead, but at least it’s been slowed. He fires at the second, and the headshot is perfect, but just like the first creature it only slows—it doesn’t die.   
  
“Can’t do this forever,” Lance warns. His hands are steady. His voice is not.   
  
Hunk is already crouching next to Shiro, hoisting their unconscious leader into his arms. He’s the only one with enough strength to have a chance of getting Shiro out of there. Shiro flops limply against him, unresponsive and frighteningly still, less damaged arm dangling freely. Hunk’s shirt is almost immediately coated in blood, but he doesn’t complain as he stands. “How do we get out?”  
  
“Go! We’ll cover you!” Keith says, crouching long enough to snatch up Shiro’s discarded rifle. Hunk takes off at a run back the way they came, and Keith trails him, knife out in his free hand. Lance takes another shot at the second undead dog, slowing it for another moment, and then turns tail and runs after Keith.  
  
They make their way out like that—Hunk leading the way, with Keith in the middle to cover them both, and Lance at the rear, occasionally turning around to fire a delaying shot behind them. It’s too close for comfort. Encumbered as he is, Hunk can’t maneuver easily around some of the trees and bushes without endangering Shiro or slowing to a crawl, and that makes them both fair game for the slower human zombies. Lance is so distracted taking down one of the ever-gaining undead dogs that he’s nearly blindsided by a zed as it reaches for him from the side. Keith reaches him just in time to plant his knife in the thing’s eye socket, saving Lance from a grisly death by mere seconds. The entire escape only takes may be a few minutes in reality, but it’s one of the more harrowing things Keith’s ever participated in.  
  
They break from the edge of the tree line to the beautiful sight of Voltron on the side of the road, engine rumbling and doors flung wide open. “Hurry!” Pidge yells, as she leans out the backseat and holds out her arms towards Hunk. Hunk reaches the car first, and hastily hands the unconscious Shiro through to Pidge, who helps pull him in across the seats. Hunk squeezes in after and slams the door shut behind him.  
  
Keith reaches the car next. He vaults over the hood towards the driver’s side door and slides in, handing off Shiro’s discarded gun to Hunk in the backseat to tend to. His hands immediately fly to the wheel and the gearshift, and he slams it into drive, keeping his foot pressed against the brake anxiously.   
  
Lance hits the car last, after turning one last time to fire at the last zombie dog as it hurtles out of the trees. It slows for just a moment, and Lance throws himself into the front passenger seat, screaming, “Go go go go go!”  
  
Keith doesn’t need any encouragement. The moment Lance’s ass is in the seat he slams his foot on the gas and peels off down the road at forty miles an hour, not even waiting for Lance’s door to fully close. His hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel as he keeps his eyes on the road. “We good?”  
  
“Christ, it’s still chasing us,” Lance yelps, turning around to stare out the back window. “It can’t match our speed, but…oh God. Is anyone else not gonna sleep for a week? ‘Cause I’m definitely not gonna sleep for a week.”  
  
Keith grits his teeth, but he can’t really blame Lance any. He’s not about to sleep for a week either. That had been terrifying.   
  
And it’s not over yet. “How’s Shiro?” he asks. He wishes he could turn around and see for himself. But the roads are hazardous these days, with all manner of junk cars and lose debris, and he can’t afford to take his eyes off it for a second or risk wrecking Voltron and screwing up any chance they’ve got.  
  
 “Not good,” Pidge answers from behind him. In the rearview mirror Keith can sort of see her and Hunk crouching over Shiro as best as they can, while Shiro’s stretched out on the backseat. He’s a little too tall for the seat, and his legs are crammed awkwardly into one end by the door. Hunk reaches into the far back to dig around for their supplies, and pulls out their meager medkit.   
  
Lance twists around in his seat again to watch the proceedings with growing horror. “It looks really bad,” he rasps after a moment. “Is that…that’s _bone_. I shouldn’t be seeing _bone_.”  
  
“It needs stitches at least,” Pidge says, sounding grim. “What it really needs is a doctor. But we don’t have one of those, so we’ll have to make do.”  
  
“We don’t even have supplies for stitches,” Hunk says, with an edge of despair, as he roots around in the medkit. “Just bandages—I’m not even sure if we have enough for all this—“  
  
“Okay,” Pidge interrupts. Her voice is shaking, but when Keith glances in the rearview mirror again, he thinks she’s trying to look confident. “Okay. Okay, we can do this. We just…we just need to do what we can, for now. Patch him up as best as we can, and…and maybe when we get to that new settlement, they’ll have something that can help.”   
  
“That’s four hundred miles,” Lance says, eyes wide. “Even before the apocalypse that’s like, a thirteen hour drive at least at the speed we can manage. And with the roads like they are…”  
  
“We just don’t stop,” Keith says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. “You guys do what you can back there, and we aren’t taking any more breaks until we reach this place. If we have to we can trade off driving.”   
  
None of them say it, but based on the expressions, everyone’s thinking the same thing as Keith. All they have right now is rumor and hearsay that there’s a settlement ahead that even _can_ provide shelter. They have no idea if it’s still standing, or if it’s been hit by zombies, or if they will even have the medical supplies and people with the skills they need. This is one giant shot in the dark and they have no idea if it’s going to save Shiro at all, or if they’ll be running themselves into the ground chasing a dream.  
  
But they don’t have any other options. And damn it, Shiro’s already done more than should ever be humanly possible to keep them going and get them this far. Keith will be damned if he lets Shiro die because of something like this, and he knows the others feel the same way.   
  
They do what they can. Hunk and Pidge apply whatever antiseptics the medkit has and wrap the gruesome injuries with the bandages in their possession. When they run out of those, they tear up the cleanest of their three blankets into strips and use those for bandages instead. The wound on Shiro’s head looks shallow, and Pidge and Hunk both think there isn’t any skull damage, but they’re afraid to press too hard in the shaky, bumpy confines of the station wagon. They both agree that he has to have a concussion for sure.   
  
But possibly the biggest moment of relief, and simultaneously one of the scariest moments since the attack, is when Shiro wakes up halfway through the first aid.  
  
He jerks awake with a gasp, and struggles to rise almost immediately. Hunk is able to hold him down by the shoulders, but not before Shiro lets out a strained whimpering noise as his arm is jarred, and he writhes against the car seat for a moment. Pidge hastily places her hand on his forehead, and says as calmly as she can manage, “Easy, Shiro! Easy. It’s safe. We…we got you away. We’re in Voltron.”  
  
“Voltron?” Shiro slurs, dazed.  
  
“The station wagon,” Pidge amends quickly. “Just take it easy. You’re banged up pretty bad. Just let us take care of it, okay?”  
  
“I…I don’t…” Shiro frowns for a moment. He seems disoriented, and Keith mentally agrees with the concussion assessment. Then his eyes widen, and he tries to push himself up again, gasping when he once again puts too much pressure on his severely damaged arm.  
  
“Easy, Shiro!” Pidge says, as Hunk pushes him down again.  
  
“Sup…supplies,” Shiro rasps. “Found food—med kits—ammo—need to g-get it—“  
  
He tries to push himself up again, only to be stopped once more by Hunk. “Relax,” Hunk says, trying to sound calm but unable to hide the shaking in his voice. “You gotta take it easy, please. Let us finish wrapping up your arm—“  
  
“No,” Shiro protests. “That pack…you guys _need_ it…I need to—promised—“  
  
Keith winces, and exchanges quick glances with a worried looking Lance. Shiro was like this because he’d been struggling to get supplies for _them_. And they’d been so caught up in getting Shiro out of there they’d never even noticed a pack of supplies. Not that they would have had the opportunity to grab it, anyway. They’d all literally had their hands full, one way or another.  
  
“It’s okay, Shiro,” Pidge says, trying to sound soothing. “We’re fine. We really don’t need that stuff right now. We’ll be okay when we get to the settlement.”   
  
Hunk’s stomach picks the most inconvenient time to growl. He winces, looking apologetic. And even disoriented, there’s no mistaking the guilt on Shiro’s face that Keith spots in the rearview mirror as he tries to push himself up again.   
  
“Shiro, _please,_ ” Lance tries, reaching back to grip the fingers of his good hand. “You gotta take it easy, okay? We’ll be fine. We got this. I mean, we were awesome enough to rescue you, right? We can figure it out for a day or two. We had a good teacher.”   
  
The combination of pleading and praise seems to work, or at least the large volume of words seems to confuse his concussed brain, because Shiro lets himself be pushed into laying down on the seat again. “Stop t’scavenge again,” he slurs. “While we still…got daylight…”  
  
“Sure,” Keith says, still watching the road. “I’ll stop in an hour after we get a little distance and find a new place to look for stuff.” It’s a bald-faced lie, but it seems to settle Shiro the rest of the way, and he submits to being tended to again.  
  
“ be fine,” he mutters, as Hunk carefully supports his arm while Pidge wraps it. “S’gonna be jus’ fine. You’ll see.”   
  
It doesn’t really surprise any of them that he’s badly injured, concussed, and possibly bleeding out miles from help, but he’s still doing his best to reassure them. That’s just Shiro, really.   
  
He passes out not too long after that, and Keith passes the promised hour without complaint, and keeps on going.   
  
He eventually slows the car to a more careful thirty miles per hour, once they’re clear of undead tracker dogs, so as to not burn through their fuel too fast or put too much wear on the car. If Voltron falls apart on them now, Shiro’s in trouble. But he keeps their pace steady and constant, and by dusk they’ve shaved at least a hundred miles off the remaining distance. Keith starts to think they might just maybe have a chance.  
  
But just before true darkness really sets in, Hunk leans forward and says, “Pull over, Keith. We gotta take a break.”  
  
“We _can’t_ ,” Keith insists. “We need to keep moving.”  
  
“We need to for Shiro,” Hunk says, equally insistent. “His bandages are starting to bleed through, and we need a better look at this head injury. Just ten minutes, Keith. Just to get him set up better for a long drive. It’s only been a couple hours but it’s already been pretty harsh on him.”  
  
Keith grits his teeth, but nods. It’ll be no good rushing there if Shiro’s beyond help because they pushed him too hard.   
  
So he pulls over on the side of the road. He and Lance carefully survey the area first to make sure there are no immediate threats, but once it’s deemed safe, they set to work. Hunk and Pidge peel back their makeshift bandages while Keith holds a flashlight for them to better see. It isn’t pretty. The wounds still look torn and ragged, but now their edges are starting to look red and inflamed. Keith can recognize the first signs of infection when he sees them—it might not be the zed virus, but who knows what other kinds of germs or bacteria were growing on those undead dogs?   
  
Hunk and Pidge both look worried, but they re-bandage the wounds with more antiseptic from the med kit, and the remains of the blanket they’d shredded earlier. Shiro doesn’t wake for most of the treatment, and only begins to stir uneasily when they shake him carefully. Even then, he stares at them blearily, eyes half open and glassy.  
  
“Shiro?” Hunk says. “Do you know what day it is?”  
  
Shiro only frowns in confusion.  
  
“That’s a dumb question,” Lance says. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, but staring outward, keeping watch. He’s still paying attention to the conversation though, clearly. “Nobody knows what day it is. It’s the Apocalypse. Shiro, what’s the car’s name?”  
  
Shiro blinks at this in confusion, but after a very long moment offers hesitantly, “Vol…tron?”  
  
They breathe a collective sigh of relief. He’s definitely concussed, but at least he recognizes a few things.   
  
“Okay, good,” Pidge says. She snaps the medkit shut. “Good job, Shiro. You just…take it easy. Try to rest. We’re making good time, we’ll get you to help soon.”  
  
“Mm,” he agrees absently, and then jerks slightly. “Wait—supplies—“  
  
“We’ve got plenty,” Keith interjects, before they can do all this again. “And we’ll stop to scavenge tomorrow. It’s too dark to do it now.” Once again a lie, of course.  
  
Shiro seems placated enough by this, at least for the moment. He passes out again shortly thereafter. They take five minutes to relieve themselves and pass around a few dried rations, and then prep for the road again.   
  
Keith heads for the driver’s seat, but Lance cuts him off halfway. “Uh-uh,” he says. “Shotgun for you. Try to get a little rest. You’ve been driving for like, seven hours straight. I can handle it for a bit.”   
  
Keith scoffs, but can’t deny that he feels exhausted. He’s been running on adrenaline and fear for most of the day, at this point. So he grumbles, but he also takes the passenger side seat as Hunk and Pidge settle into the back on Shiro watch again. And although he’d been convinced he wouldn’t sleep ever again after that fiasco in the afternoon, he’s genuinely surprised to discover he nods off, at least for a little bit.  
  
He wakes when Lance nudges him gently, and a brief glance at the dashboard clock tells him it’s been four hours—around eleven thirty at night. “Gotta stop for Shiro again,” Lance says. There are dark circles under his eyes. “Then gotta swap with you again.”   
  
Keith nods wordlessly, and twists in his seat to see how Shiro’s doing as Lance pulls the car to the side of the road for another stop.   
  
Shiro’s gotten worse in the few hours he’s been asleep, and Keith feels a stab of guilt at that. When Pidge and Hunk peel back the bandages to check on the injury, Keith can smell the the meaty tang of infection, and curls his nose automatically. The wounds are now surrounded by an angrier, raw red color, and their antiseptic doesn’t seem to be doing much to combat it. There’s a faint sheen of sweat on Shiro’s brow, now, and his unnaturally white fringe of hair is starting to stick to it. He doesn’t wake when they adjust his bandages at all, but there’s a soft whining noise that works its way out of his throat whenever they move his injuries too much.  
  
Keith swallows. Shiro isn’t doing well at all. “How many miles did we make?” he asks Lance.   
  
Lance does not look happy. “Eighty-ish?” he says. “Need to go a lot slower at night, especially when the headlights attract the zeds…”  
  
Keith grimaces. They need to make better time than this, or Shiro’s not going to make it at all. And he doesn’t deserve to die in the backseat of a station wagon miles away from anywhere. Not after all the things he’s managed to live through. It’s just not right.  
  
“Switch,” he says. Lance doesn’t argue.   
  
They take five minutes to finish with Shiro’s bandages and pass around mouthfuls of water from the canteens. Everyone wordlessly donates a portion of their water rations to Shiro, and Pidge carefully wets a shredded piece of blanket to press to his forehead. Hunk tucks the second of their blankets over Shiro’s body to try and keep him more comfortable. He mutters in his feverish sleep, but doesn’t outwardly react to any of them.   
  
Keith pulls Voltron away from the side of the road as soon as Hunk gives him the go ahead, and doesn’t intend to stop driving for a long time.   
  
Unfortunately, fate doesn’t work in their favor. Barely an hour after Keith takes over driving from Lance again, a thick, heavy fog rolls in. It cuts visuals down almost completely, and Keith can barely see five feet in front of the car. It forces him to slow to a snail’s pace as he maneuvers carefully down the road, constantly on the lookout for debris, roadblocks and abandoned cars. He barely gains an additional twenty miles in the first hour the fog hits, and he’s ready to hit something in frustration. They don’t have _time_ for this! _Shiro_ doesn’t have time for this!  
  
It’s some of the most agonizing hours of Keith’s life. Barely making any headway, going so slow it’s nearly unbearable. Listening to Shiro’s breathing grow increasingly more labored and struggling as the night wears on. Trying to make out his fevered ramblings, which are sometimes so slurred they’re unintelligible, and are sometimes in a different language entirely (mostly Japanese, but since the rest of them collectively know maybe fifty words in Japanese, knowing what it is hardly does them any good). When he does wake he’s not lucid, and doesn’t seem to remember where he is anymore, or who he’s with; he’s mistaken Pidge for her brother at least twice, and sometimes he forgets who Hunk or Lance are entirely. Occasionally, he lets out soft whimpers or cries of pain when his wounds are jarred, and that hurts Keith most of all. Because Shiro _never_ so openly broadcasts his weaknesses and hurts, and the fact that he’s so out of it he doesn’t even remember this part of himself anymore…it’s telling of just how badly he’s doing.   
  
By morning, the fog finally burns away as the first rays of sunlight hit. It would be more inspiring, if all of them weren’t so exhausted. Hunk and Pidge have spent most of the night tending to Shiro in the backseat, and both are sleeping lightly by the time sunrise comes. Shiro’s head is in Pidge’s lap, and she wakes if he stirs, but otherwise she’s dead to the world. Lance, despite his claims of not sleeping for a week, is also out cold, crushed against the car door with his arms folded across his chest in the front passenger seat, and he doesn’t wake at the first rays of sunlight, either.  
  
Keith is also exhausted. He knows he should probably wake Lance and swap with him again, after driving all night. But the sunlight is like a challenge, and Shiro’s harsh breaths in the backseat are all the motivation he needs. He’s got perfect visuals and no obstructions, and he finally has room to move. He kicks Voltron’s speed up and pushes forward, darting skillfully around the bumps and obstructions in the road now that he can see what he’s dodging.   
  
It almost becomes mindless. He doesn’t _zone out_ exactly—Keith knows about highway hypnosis, but he’s not in danger of falling asleep. But it’s like he has tunnel vision, and can’t see anything outside of the road, can’t focus on anything else besides the car. He’s so tired, and he can feel himself flagging, but at the same time it’s like he _can’t_ give up.   
  
And he can’t, not really. If he stops, he’s convinced Shiro’s going to die. By now, Shiro’s breathing is terribly labored and weak, but he’s gone oddly quiet in every other sense. There aren’t any feverish mutterings or slurred words in other languages. And that scares the hell out of Keith. He’s not sure how much time Shiro’s got left.  
  
“Nngh…Keith? It’s sunny? What?”  
  
Lance blinks awake, and glances idly at the dashboard clock. His eyes widen a moment later when he registers the time—nearly ten-thirty in the morning—and he calculates the approximate eleven hours Keith’s been driving straight through. “Why didn’t you wake me?”  
  
“I had it covered,” Keith says shortly. “And you were all tired.”  
  
“Us? Keith, you look awful. Your hands are shaking.”   
  
Keith blinks, and stares at his hands on the wheel. Now that Lance mentions it, he realizes they are shaking.  
  
“And your face is flushed,” Lance adds, looking alarmed. “Shit, Keith, I think _you’re_ getting sick too. Pull over.”  
  
“Don’t need to. By my estimate we’ve got maybe fifty miles left, I can—“  
  
“That’s a couple _hours_ , Keith,” Lance says, barely managing to keep his incredulous hiss to a more manageable level. “Switch with me, _now_. I’ve got plenty of rest. You can swap with Pidge in the back, she can help me navigate.” And when Keith doesn’t pull over right away, he adds warningly, “Shiro’s gonna be pissed as hell when he wakes up from all this and figures out you ran yourself ragged over him. Assuming you don’t run us all into a ditch because you’re so sick you can’t focus, man. How do you think he’ll handle _that?_ ”  
  
He wouldn’t, obviously. That would be a death sentence for Shiro. That’s all it takes for Keith to finally grimace and pull over on the side of the road again to switch.  
  
They take another fifteen minutes for everyone to stretch their legs, get a bathroom break, pass around food, and look at Shiro’s injuries again. By now Shiro is in awful shape, and the infection in his injuries is raging. Keith hopes to death they manage to find _someone_ who can help him, assuming this settlement exists. If not, it might be bad enough that Shiro will lose the arm, assuming he survives the injuries at all. The others worry about Keith too, though, which he can’t help but feel is stupid by comparison. Hunk confirms that he’s got a fever, but that’s hardly _anything_ compared to Shiro. So what if he feels a little crappy? Keith isn’t the one _dying_.  
  
Then they pile back into Voltron, and set off again, this time with Pidge in the front seat with her makeshift GPS in hand. Hunk has now taken point for Shiro’s care, with Shiro’s head now resting in his lap, while Keith is on the far side near Shiro’s awkwardly crammed legs. Keith doesn’t have time to feel particularly uncomfortable or worried for the last leg of the journey. He finds himself falling asleep almost as soon as Lance puts the car into drive and peels out on to the highway.  
  
He wakes when he hears Lance’s tired but enthusiastic cheer, and jerks upright with a wince. His head hurts, and he feels tired and hot. Hunk wordlessly passes him one of the canteens and insists that he drink, and Keith sips at the water as he stares out his window.  
  
They’re at a massive complex of buildings, and there’s people everywhere. _Living_ people. As Keith looks around he spots the chain link fences hastily erected to keep out the undead. Farther up the largest of the buildings in the complex is a large sign that reads _Mercy Hospital._ Keith’s eyes widen. This building, and the others around it, are well tended and look inhabited. That can only mean…  
  
“We made it,” Lance says, sounding relieved. “We made it. The settlement. We _did_ it.” He sounds in awe over their victory.  
  
“Find a place to park, and we’ll see if we can find someone to help Shiro,” Pidge adds. “It’s a hospital…maybe some of the old doctors or nurses are still around.”  
  
They manage to claim a space in the shanty town outside the hospital, and Hunk and Pidge disappear into the building to track down help. Lance stays behind with the car to guard Shiro and their supplies. Keith ostensibly does too, except he feels exhausted and terrible, and isn’t sure how much help he’d actually be if anyone did try to take anything.  
  
“Take it easy,” Lance says, when Keith struggles to stand upright outside the car and keep an eye out on their neighbors. “I’ve got this. You’ve done plenty, trust me. We’re here as fast as we are ‘cause’ve you, now just work on getting better. Everything’s gonna be fine.”  
  
Keith sometimes finds Lance’s blinding optimism and overconfidence a little frustrating, but he lets himself believe in it this time, and nods. He sinks wearily back into the passenger’s seat, and finds himself drifting back into sleep before too long.   
  
They made it. They did it. And everything was going to be okay.

* * *

  
  
When Shiro wakes, he’s genuinely surprised, because it’s something he’d honestly never expected to do again.  
  
Even stranger is that he wakes in a bed—a _real_ bed—and he’s in a real room, and he has no idea how he got there.   
  
“Hey, Shiro!”   
  
He blinks, and turns to find Lance grinning brightly at him. Lance is flopped in a run-down looking chair next to his bedside, and he looks tired, but also relieved. “Lance,” he says after a moment, frowning. “Where…?”  
  
“Mercy Hospital,” Lance answers promptly. “That’s the next settlement we were aiming for. And before you ask the next question, it’s been about four days.”   
  
Shiro blinks at him again, and then jumps to the third question. “How…?”  
  
“We drove for like, twenty hours straight to get you here,” Lance informs him seriously. “Please don’t ever do that again. You scared us half to death. Keith went a little crazy getting you here and literally made himself sick trying to save you. He’s fine, by the way. Sleeping it off still, but he’s mostly over it.” He points at Shiro’s other side, and when Shiro turns his head he spots the teenager in question dozing on a second cot, dead to the world.   
  
“Hunk? Pidge?” Shiro asks next, going through the full roster.  
  
“Totally fine. Actually, they’re the reason you’ve got such a swanky room,” Lance admits. “Nobody wanted to help you at first, everyone thought you’d been bitten by human zombies. Hunk and Pidge bartered some of their techy skills repairing a whole bunch of medical stuff here though, and earned enough favor to buy you some medical attention. Actually, they liked Hunk and Pidge so much here that they both got a ton of job offers, but they both declined. Safe Haven, you know.”  
  
Shiro does know. “Which leaves you as the babysitter,” he guesses after a moment.   
  
Lance shrugs. “Beats working,” he says brightly. “It’s nice to get a chance to chill for a change. I don’t even have to guard Voltron right now. The people here love Hunk and Pidge so much they gave us our own locked area to store it until we’re ready to go.”   
  
“Impressive.” Shiro raises his right arm, and winces. “How bad…?” he asks after a moment. It certainly hurts like hell, and he can feel aches and pains all the way up to his shoulder, amongst other things. But it’s so heavily bandaged he can’t see any of the damage.  
  
“You,” Lance informs him, “are damned lucky. They said if it had been too much longer they would’ve had to amputate. As it is you’ve got like a _thousand_ stitches guaranteed to scar, and they said your arm probably won’t be as strong as it used to be.”   
  
Shiro can deal with that. He’s already long since learned to compensate for his right arm with his left one, after the last injury he got. And scars are just scars. He’s got dozens already, and he’s sure these won’t be the last.  
  
“You’re also stuck here for a while longer until they can finish treating the infection,” Lance recites. “Hunk and Pidge are using the time to stock up on supplies with all the job money they’re making. Finally decking Voltron out with a few improvements while we’re here. So just take it easy for now, and whenever you’re feeling good to go we can head out again.” Lance shrugs. “No rush. Safe Haven will still be there.”  
  
Shiro is impressed with the team’s tenacity. “Sounds like you’ve all done a good job,” he says after a moment. “You didn’t need my help with anything.”  
  
Lance looks concerned at that more than anything. “That’s not an invitation to leave,” he warns. It’s clear that ‘leaves’ means a lot more than just ‘walking away.’ “No stupid risks or anything. Just…you don’t have to do _everything_ by yourself, or get super worried over us. I mean, we can handle it okay for a day or two. We had a good teacher.”   
  
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Shiro says. “Take advantage of the chance to rest, at least. It’s only going to get harder from here…” Despite himself, he yawns.   
  
“Same to you,” Lance says, looking a little amused. “I’ll let you rest. The others are going to be real happy to know you’re up again, though. We were all…really, _really_ worried. You have no idea.”  
  
Shiro’s pretty sure he does. It’s the same worry he feels every time any one of them is scared, sick or injured.   
  
But he just nods, as his head sinks back into the pillow again. The four of them had been a random group thrown together haphazardly at the start of all of this, but they had clearly grown into a well meshed team. Shiro doesn’t even need to hear the full story to know he’s damned proud of them for what they accomplished, not to mention thankful for it.   
  
And as he drifts back into sleep, he lets that warm feeling carry him, and has a feeling that if any group can make the perilous journey to Safe Haven, it’s these kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got more prompts for these too...just need time to write them in the middle of everything else I'm writing. So much to write, so little time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing they fear most comes to pass. But Shiro won't let it define or defeat them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For PlatonicVLDWeek 3.0, Day 5: Change  
> And also a continuation of some prompts sitting in my inbox from the "Voltron Apocalypse 2016" gaming event. Specifically a prompt for THIS event here:  
> http://velkynkarma.tumblr.com/post/154999428143/velkynkarma-nooooooooooooooooooooo-wtf
> 
>  
> 
>  **Chapter warnings:** Zombies, blood, horror, injury, angst, discussions about mercy killing, **but no actual character death** just FYI (considering the nature of the prompt I feel I need to guarantee this)

The moment Shiro hears the screaming, he knows he made the wrong choice.  
  
They’re maybe three quarters of the way to Safe Haven by now, but while they’re closer to safety than they ever have been, the journey is harder now than it it ever has been, too. The zombie hordes are starting to get larger, and there are less safe places to stop over and hide for the night. Supplies become scarcer the farther they go, as desperate travelers have started picking clean more and more of the homes and shops along the route to Safe Haven. There are few settlements to stop at still for resting, trade, news and jobs, but even at these places supplies are hard to come by and significantly more expensive than before.   
  
Shiro had done what he could to bargain for food at the last settlement, but even bartering Pidge’s and Hunk’s mechanical skills into the mix, he hadn’t been able to obtain as much as they wanted. Most of their money and trade had been forced to go towards fuel, and getting the necessary parts for a sorely needed repair for Voltron, which meant they’d been stretched thin on food. Shiro had hoped to make up the difference on the road—he’d become quite an expert at scavenging by now—but there just hadn’t been much left to find.  
  
After a week on the road, all of them were looking thinner than they should have. And Lance had gotten sick recently, which meant they’d been forced to spend a few days in one place until he was recovered enough to keep going. He was better now, but he felt awful about causing them to burn through their already meager food supplies while sitting and waiting for him to get well again.  
  
The end result was that all of them were starting to get very hungry, and more than a little desperate. So when Lance suggested going off the main path to try scavenging in surrounding houses of the suburban town they were passing through, trying to come up with _some_ way to make it up to the rest of them, they’d all been hungry enough to listen.  
  
It wasn’t the safest decision to make, certainly, but what decision _was_ in a zombie apocalypse? The zeds were out there one way or another, but they also had to eat, or their own starvation would kill them just as easily. Going off the main route to Safe Haven would mean the protection of a well-traveled road was lost, and the undead might congregate more in untravelled areas where they hadn’t been picked off by people dreaming of Safe Haven. But it also meant they could poke through homes and shops that people might not have picked over yet. There might still be things there that people hadn’t found, unwilling to risk leaving the moderate safety of the road.   
  
It’s a decision that’s a risk, certainly, but it shouldn’t have been a problem. Ever since the disastrous incident with the undead dogs, Shiro’s taken the time to train with each one of the four teenagers on scavenging rules and skills. All four of them know basic scavenging procedure well now, and know how to work in teams in order to hunt for food and supplies efficiently. Shiro trusts them to handle themselves well; they’ve all proven themselves time and time again since the journey started.   
  
So it’s a risky decision, but ultimately he listens to their grumbling stomachs and the desperation in their eyes, and agrees to a scavenging mission in the more dangerous off-road areas in the late afternoon. He splits them into teams of two—Pidge and Lance, and Keith and Hunk. Lance and Hunk are both the most proficient with firearms of the four, and each is armed with one of their two rifles. It will let them cover for Pidge and Keith while the two break into abandoned homes and dig through shops for useful supplies. Shiro goes by himself with the pistol they found along the road, after promising for the hundredth time that he will be _exceptionally_ careful and immediately signal for help in the event he becomes overwhelmed on his own. It’s almost funny, how much the four of them worry over _him_ now, when he’s the one that’s supposed to be getting them to Safe Haven.   
  
Everyone promises to be careful, take it slow, and not push themselves into a dangerous situation just for a chance at supplies. They will find food again and they can make things work—if one of them dies, they can’t be replaced. They take his warnings seriously and disperse for the scavenge. All of them agree to stay within a two block radius, and to return after exactly one hour, regardless of whether or not anything has been found.  
  
And at first Shiro thinks it goes well. He finds a decent cache of medical supplies in an old pharmacy’s back room, and more ammunition for the rifles tucked away in someone’s house. (He also finds a zed locked in somebody’s bedroom in said house, but manages to dispatch it relatively quietly, without too much fuss). He hasn’t found food yet, but there’s a few more residences he can try, and somebody must still have canned goods stocked away in a pantry or cellar somewhere.   
  
But it’s when he’s heading for the next house that he hears the scream—a scream that sounds terrifyingly like Lance’s—and he realizes he’s made a terrible, _terrible_ decision.   
  
He turns and bolts towards the source of the noise, hoping desperately that he’s not too late.  
  
The screaming comes again, and this time it’s a cry for help, coming from both Lance and Pidge. Shiro skids around a corner with his weapon out, already terrified of what he might find. Farther down the street, Shiro catches sight of both Keith and Hunk diving around another corner, also coming to the calls for help.   
  
Shiro spots Lance and Pidge farther down the street, and his heart nearly stops at the sight of the ten or so zombies surrounding them, shuffling ever closer. Their backs are to one of the residences in an attempt at defense, but it’s clear they were caught in a bad place without any time to get somewhere safer. Shiro doesn’t hesitate to run towards the small swarm, hoping he can get there before it’s too late. On the other side of the street, Keith and Hunk do as well.  
  
Shiro feels his heart ice over at the sight of Lance, struggling to aim his rifle with a bloodied arm that doesn’t appear to be working properly. Pidge has sidled in front of him defensively with a combat knife in hand, and her eyes are wild and furious as the zombies approach. One of the undead lurches forward with its arms out towards them, and Pidge strikes with a loud yell. She rams the knife blade through the thing’s eye socket with a practiced technique Shiro recognizes as Keith’s, from the two’s training sessions together. It’s brutally effective, and the zombie collapses to the ground, truly dead now.   
  
It’s brutally effective, but it doesn’t stop the other zombies from coming, and they overwhelm her with both size and numbers. Pidge curses as a second of the undead monstrosities latches onto her arm, and stabs that one in the eye as well, but it doesn’t let go even in death. A third grabs her weapon arm, and she struggles in a sudden panic to free herself, to fight back, _anything_. Lance gives up on trying to aim the rifle and lurches forward to kick at one of the zombies holding her, but it doesn’t help. Shiro has just enough of a view to see the zed latched to Pidge’s weapon arm reaching forward to sink its teeth into her forearm, before the heads of the other zombies get in the way as they stumble ever closer.  
  
He can’t see Pidge, but he _can_ hear her scream of pain.   
  
_“No!”_ Shiro snarls. He feels _too many_ things at that moment, shock and horror and failure and rage and disgust at himself, but he does his best to focus. Focus is the only thing that’s going to get them out of there. He doesn’t have time to feel. He has to _act._   
  
He hits the back of the small swarm at the same time that Keith does from the other side, and Shiro can see pure rage in Keith’s expression. Hunk is farther back, terror and worry on his face, rifle at the ready but unable to use it with his allies in such close quarters.  
  
Shiro can’t use his own pistol for the same reason, but he’s not about to let that stop him. He holsters it and reaches out for the nearest zed, grappling it and flinging it behind him before it can even react to his presence. The crack of a rifle shot indicates it made an excellent target for Hunk, once it was clear.

Keith is under no such restrictions at all, and strikes with the speed and lethality of a rattlesnake. He digs his favored knife deep into zed skulls and eye sockets, dropping bodies into true death. Between the three of them they manage to take down five of the zombies before the creatures even realize there’s other prey besides the ones they’re attracted to in the area.   
  
Bolstered by their rescue, Lance and Pidge both yell as they shove back against their attackers. Pidge screams as one of the zombies continues to gnaw on her arm, but Keith finally gets close enough to strike, slamming his knife home in the back of the zed’s head before pulling it off of her. Shiro reaches the one latched to Lance, and Lance shoves against it again long enough for Shiro to grapple it and haul it off of him. He throws the zombie back into open space for Hunk to take care of, before twisting around to elbow a third _hard_ in the eye-socket. It overbalances into the ground, buying Shiro a precious few seconds.   
  
“Move! _Run!”_ he yells, grabbing Lance’s wrist and hauling him away from one of the remaining two zeds. Lance looks dazed, but Shiro doesn’t give him a chance to fall behind, dragging Lance after him and forcing him to stay upright. Keith does the same, dragging Pidge free from the remnants of the swarm and shoving her towards Hunk.   
  
There are still more zeds coming. Most of the crowd that had originally been attracted to Lance and Pidge is gone, decimated by Shiro, Keith and Hunk. But the noise of their fight had attracted others, and more undead are beginning to shuffle from down other streets and inside buildings and between houses.  
  
Their exit is still clear, but only if they _run_ , and run they do. Shiro takes the lead, pistol in his left hand, and dragging the staggering Lance after him by his uninjured arm. Pidge and Hunk follow, Pidge clutching her own wounded arm close to her chest. Keith brings up the rear, knife blade coated in zed gore, as he eyes their undead followers and _dares_ them to risk getting close enough for him to strike.  
  
Shiro’s right arm screams in protest, his forearm throbbing angrily from he jarring impact of his elbow attack and the strain of grappling and pulling Lance. After all the punishment it’s taken, he shouldn’t have pushed it so far. But he doesn’t care. He’ll push it to the point it’s useless, _lose_ it even, if that’s what it takes to protect the others.   
  
A few minutes are centuries in a zed swarm, but eventually they make it back to the main road. Voltron sits patiently against the sidewalk, locked tight against potential intruders, but there’s not a living soul in sight to interfere with them now. They stagger for the car, and Shiro finally lets go of Lance’s wrist to dig into his pockets for the keys so he can unlock the doors.   
  
“Two minutes,” Keith calls warningly. His expression and his tone are grim. He’s taken up a guard position now, turned back to face the way they came from, knife still out and ready. He’s watching the train of ever-growing zombies shuffling towards them with slow but inevitable purpose.   
  
Shiro finally gets the front door unlocked, and hastily presses the manual trigger for the rest of the car. Hunk immediately shrugs his scavenged goods bag that he and Keith had been working on free and tosses it, unsorted and still zipped, into the back with the rest of their supplies. Shiro follows suit with his own gear, and motions for Pidge and Lance to do the same. Pidge, wincing painfully at the way it jars her bitt— _wounded_ arm, shrugs her own bag free and tosses it in with the others.  
  
But neither she nor Lance make a move to get in the car.  
  
“Minute thirty,” Keith hisses warningly.   
  
“In, everyone,” Shiro says, already ducking around for the driver’s seat. “Hunk, stow the rifles.” Hunk does as ordered, collecting Lance’s firearm as well before stowing them, more carefully, in the back of Voltron. But when he comes back around the car to take his seat, he hesitates.   
  
No one, Shiro realizes, has tried to get in the car.  
  
Keith doesn’t surprise him; Keith will wait until the last if it comes to it, to buy the others a little more time. Hunk had been following orders. But Pidge and Lance…  
  
“Get in,” he repeats, gesturing specifically to the two of them.  
  
Both give him dazed, pained stares. Pidge clutches her wounded arm closer to her chest, as though trying to hide it. Lance’s sleeve is completely shredded, but he tries to pull at it anyway with his uninjured hand, hiding the bloody mess as best as he can and wincing as it’s jarred. They’re stunned. Horrified. Shiro can see it in their eyes, in the shrunken ways they hold themselves, like they’re trying to curl up and disappear.  
  
“We can’t,” Pidge says finally. “Shiro, we _can’t._ ”  
  
“You can,” Shiro says insistently. “The car’s right there. Get in.”   
  
He takes a step forward; he’ll push them into the seats if he has to. They’re in shock, he can see that. They may not be able to properly follow his meaning. But there’s no way in hell he’s leaving them behind like this.  
  
But they both take a step back when he approaches, defensive and wary. Both turn enough to keep their injuries away from him, clutching the wounds close protectively. “No, Shiro, we _can’t_ ,” Lance insists. There’s something wild and desperate in his eyes, but also something resigned—like he knows the inevitable has happened and is just desperate for Shiro to acknowledge it. “We were…Shiro, the zeds, they…we got bit—“  
  
“We don’t have time for this conversation here,” Shiro interrupts. It’s the truth, but he also doesn’t want Lance to finish that sentence. He knows what happened—he knows it’s _real_ —but saying it, acknowledging it like that—he can’t do that. Not yet. Not here. “They are a minute out. Get in the car. _Now._ ”   
  
But they don’t move. Pidge stares in helplessness, and Lance’s eyes are starting to become suspiciously watery, but they don’t step towards the car.   
  
And Shiro gets it. He understands. But he doesn’t have time for this. And no matter how the world works now, he _refuses_ to accept that’s the only answer.   
  
“Keith.” Keith glances up from his watchful guard, just in time to catch the keys Shiro tosses in his direction. “Drive. Now.”   
  
Keith looks startled for a moment. While Shiro has swapped out with them in the front seat to rotate driving shifts, he generally takes the wheel in high-danger situations like this unless there’s no other option. But after a moment Keith glances at Pidge and Lance, an then back to Shiro, and nods silently in understanding. He jogs around to the driver’s seat immediately, turns the car on, and waits.   
  
“Hunk,” Shiro says next. “Front seat. Now.”  
  
Hunk looks anxious, glancing between the rest of the team and the zombies growing ever closer. But he eventually stammers, “Okay,” and climbs into the front next to Keith.  
  
“You should go,” Pidge says, when Shiro turns to look at them. “It’s not safe for you here now.” Lance nods.  
  
“Or you either,” Shiro agrees. “So you two are going to get into the backseat first. And I’m not getting in until you do.”  
  
Lance’s eyes widen in horror. “You can’t do that Shiro!” he insists, panicked. “You can’t stay here, you’ll die—“  
  
“So will you.”  
  
“You _can’t_ take us with you, Shiro, that’s not how this _works_ —“ Pidge insists.  
  
“It is how this works,” Shiro says. His tone brooks no argument; it’s what he knows all of them have referred to as his ‘leader voice’ when they think he’s not listening. “None of us gets left behind. That’s the deal we made from day one. Nothing has changed that. Thirty seconds.”  
  
Lance glances over his shoulder at the zed hordes approaching, face pale with fear. They’re close enough now to see misshapen eyes and grotesque rot. The moans they made are enough to send chills down Shiro’s spine, even with months of experience dealing with zeds.   
  
“Shiro, _please_ just go—“ Pidge says.   
  
“Twenty-five seconds,” is Shiro’s only answer.  
  
Pidge’s eyes narrow. Even terrified, Shiro can see she’s prepared to try and out-stubborn him, and Pidge can be immovable when she’s set on something. “We can’t be responsible for _killing_ all of you—“ she begins.  
  
But Lance shoves her abruptly for the backseat of the car. “Lance!” she protests, but he pushes again. He’s shaky and weak from the attack, from his exhaustion, from his fear, but he’s insistent. “Lance, what the hell?” she snaps. “We _can’t,_ you know we can’t, you know what will happen—“  
  
“Yeah, I know Shiro really _will_ stand here until they get here,” Lance says. His voice trembles with a mix of fatigue and terror, but there’s resolve in there too, Shiro is relieved to hear. “We can’t kill him _that_ way now, but he and Hunk and Keith’ll all die for sure if we stand around like this. We’ll figure it out after, just _go!”_  
  
Pidge looks startled when Lance puts it that way, but stops fighting Lance’s shoves a moment later. She crawls awkwardly into the back seat with one arm, keeping her wound clutched close to her chest and struggling not to bleed on or touch anything with it. Lance follows after, crawling into the middle seat as he too tries to keep his fateful wound from coming into contact with anything.  
  
Shiro waits until they’re both in, and until he’s _sure_ Pidge isn’t going to try and bolt out the other door, before he gets into the backseat himself. The zeds are only ten seconds away when he slams the door shut after himself and snaps, “Keith, _go!”_   
  
Keith slams his foot down on the gas, and peels the car out of there at forty-five miles an hour.   
  
Shiro waits for thirty seconds, long enough to be certain they’re out of immediate danger. Only a few zeds come ambling out over the road, and Keith is skilled enough to avoid them, even at forty-five miles an hour on a cluttered highway. Even with the stunned, horrified silence that’s filled the car. Even with the wary looks Keith keeps shooting him in the rear-view mirror, as if to ask, _what the hell do we do now?_  
  
Shiro wishes he knew.   
  
_Start small,_ he tells himself. _Triage._ Trusting that Keith has the escape under control and can handle it without him, Shiro twists around in the backseat to lean over the partition and rummage through their supplies.   
  
He finds the med-kit he’d scavenged not twenty minutes ago with relative ease, and turns back to Lance and Pidge with it in his hands. Both of them are huddled as far away from him as they can get, clutching their injuries close with pained expressions, like they’re afraid he’ll attack them.  
  
Or like they’re afraid they’ll attack _him._   
  
“Scoot over this way, Lance,” Shiro says, as casually as if it’s just another day on the road. “I need to sit in the middle.” He levers himself up awkwardly for the switch, balancing with his left hand against the partition, curled awkwardly to avoid the roof. Voltron has been a durable car, but it really isn’t big enough to maneuver in.  
  
But Lance shakes his head. “I shouldn’t,” he says. “We should stay over here. Just to be safe.” Pidge nods in agreement.  
  
“I can’t treat your injuries if I can’t reach you,” Shiro says practically.  
  
“You shouldn’t treat us at all,” Pidge says. “There’s nothing you can do.” Lance swallows next to her, wide-eyed. In the front seat, a plaintive little moan of horror escapes Hunk.  
  
“That’s not true,” Shiro says. He keeps his voice calm, reasonable. Everyone’s scared, even himself. The worst thing he can do is spook someone now. “Those injuries look painful. We’ll wrap them up and make you more comfortable, just like we have every other time anyone’s gotten injured.”  
  
“You can’t waste supplies on us _now!”_ Pidge insists, helpless. “We’re a waste now! There’s no point to it—those are hard enough to find, you need to save them for _real_ injuries. They’re for the team, not for us—“  
  
“Keith,” Shiro interrupts. “Hunk. Do you mind if I use these supplies to treat Pidge and Lance?”  
  
“No,” Keith answers from the driver’s seat immediately. His voice is grim but bitterly determined. “Do it.”  
  
“They’re on the team,” Hunk says. There’s a tremble in his voice, and Shiro can see at a glance that he’s about to cry, but his answer is genuine. “I don’t mind.”   
  
“There,” Shiro says, still perfectly reasonable. “No one thinks it’s a waste. So scoot over, Lance. If I’m in the middle I can reach both of you.”  
  
Lance is definitely teary-eyed now, and Pidge looks stunned. “Why are you doing this?” she asks after a moment. “It’s not…we were _bitten_ , Shiro. By _zeds_. There’s only one answer to that—“  
  
 _“No,”_ Shiro says sharply, with enough of a snarl in it that both Pidge and Lance jump a little. “No,” he adds, more calmly. “We’re going to treat you just like we would in any other situation, because you don’t deserve to be in pain when you get injured, okay? No one deserves that. No matter the injury. So please let me help you.”   
  
“You should use gloves,” Lance says after a moment. He swallows. “We don’t…we could accidentally infect you, if you…” He trails off, but both him and Pidge shudder.  
  
Shiro wordlessly leans over the partition again and digs through their supplies. After some rooting around, he finds some of the winter gear—Shiro had insisted they find some, knowing they were going north into potential blizzard territory at this time of year. There’s a pair of winter gloves he can use there. They're not ideal for medical treatment, but the best he can do given the situation. He’ll have to toss them after, but it will be worth it.   
  
It’s only when he pulls them on that Lance finally slides across the seat, crawling awkwardly into place behind Shiro to get to the far side. Shiro settles between the two of them in the middle seat with the kit in his lap, and sets to work.   
  
He treats Pidge first. She lays her injured arm carefully in her lap, and he cuts back torn cloth from her sleeve to reveal the wound. It’s her right forearm, closer to her elbow, on the outer side where she’d tried to raise her arm to block. The edges of the wound look torn and ragged from Keith tearing the attacking zombie off of her, but for all that it isn’t bleeding terribly. Zombie wounds, curiously, never seem to bleed as long as a regular wound, and never seem to become raw and red from nasty infection like a bite from an animal might.   
  
The Holts had speculated on that quite a bit, when Shiro had tried to escort them out of the hot-zone, back when the zombies had first risen and started to spread. They’d wondered what it meant. The infection affected the full body on death, and didn’t seem to be localized around the point where it was first contracted. Shiro had seen it enough from their studies to recognize the bite as zed-origin for sure.   
  
The realization makes his stomach flop awkwardly. He’d _seen_ what had happened, he’d _known_ , but somehow he’d hoped all the same that he’d just been mistaken. This is real. This is _real._ Pidge is infected with the undead plague, and Lance too, probably.   
  
What are they supposed to _do?_   
  
_One step at a time,_ he reminds himself. _Start small,_ he repeats. He’ll figure it out. He has to. They’re all counting on him to find an answer.  
  
He cleans and binds the wound carefully, wrapping it with extra bandages to ensure no fluids will escape and potentially infect others, even by accident. Pidge watches silently, an expression of numb horror on her face, but she doesn’t protest any further as he tends to the injury. She doesn’t even flinch when the injury is jarred or pulled at, although it has to be painful.  
  
“It’s going to be fine,” Shiro tells her, once he’s done. “Everything’s going to be just fine. You’ll see.”   
  
She just stares. It doesn’t look like she believes him.  
  
He really can’t blame her.  
  
Lance is next. His bite is on his left arm, closer to the wrist. Shiro is grateful to see no bone was exposed, with less muscle to take the pressure off the bite. But Lance whimpers when Shiro rotates the arm to study the injury in full, and Shiro can’t help but wonder if something was crushed or cracked. If it has been, there’s nothing he can do but bind it and hope for the best. There isn’t a doctor in the entire country that would try to treat the broken wrist of a zed bite victim, and no cover story on Earth Shiro could concoct to let Lance be seen another way. So Shiro does what he can. He picks the shredded remains of Lance’s coat out of the injury, wraps it as gently as he can, and murmurs soothing nonsense whenever Lance whimpers at his touch.   
  
“There,” he says, when he’s finally finished. “All set. You did just fine, buddy. Everything’s going to be okay.”   
  
Lance doesn’t look like he believes it either, but he mutters a strained “Thanks,” as he cradles his injured arm close to his chest again. He stares at his feet, and almost subconsciously leans farther away from Shiro, towards the door. On Shiro’s other side, Pidge is doing nearly the same. Both of them look terrified.  
  
In the front of the car, things aren’t doing any better. Hunk is twisted around to watch silently, horror on his face. Keith keeps his eyes on the road, but Shiro can see the tenseness in his shoulders and arms as he drives, and see how white-knuckled his grip on the wheel has become.  
  
Shiro’s not sure if he wants to sigh, or scream, or pull them all close, or all of the above. _What are they supposed to do?_   
  
He needs an answer fast, but he still doesn’t have one.   
  
He finds himself stalling against his own thoughts with a personal distraction, shoving the infected, bloodied winter gloves into the med kit and snapping it shut carefully. This kit is a loss now for general use; it’ll have to be saved for Pidge and Lance alone. Pidge hadn’t been wrong about _that._   
  
He still doesn’t care. He can find more if he has to. That, at least, he is certain of.  
  
They fall into a numb silence. The atmosphere in the car is thick and heavy with fear and sorrow, and Shiro can practically feel it emanating from all of them. The quiet is almost painful, and it’s only broken once, when five miles down the road Shiro finally orders Keith to slow down.  Shiro doesn’t really want to slow, but they have to be mindful of their fuel. Keith does so immediately, slowing to a thirty miles per hour that feels like a sluggish crawl. They’ve escaped, but it doesn’t feel like it. Shiro wants to keep going, to go so fast they can escape the inevitable, run away from it forever.   
  
If only life really worked like that.  
  
After almost half an hour of oppressive, painful, stunned silence, Lance finally speaks. His voice is shaky and tense, and wavers like he’s on the verge of tears. “I can’t believe we made it so _close._ It’s not fair.”  
  
Pidge swallows. Nods. “Another couple weeks, and maybe…dad and Matt…” She swallows again. “Too late, now.”  
  
“No, it’s not,” Shiro says firmly. “We’re still close. We’re making good progress to Safe Haven. Nothing has changed.”  
  
All of them give him startled looks—even Keith exchanges a surprised glance with him in the rearview mirror. Shiro ignores them.  
  
“We were bitten, Shiro,” Lance says. His expression is agonized when he says it, and Shiro knows how hard it is for him to admit to that. “We’re infected. We can’t keep going.”  
  
“Yeah,” Pidge agrees. “You can…you can drop us somewhere along the way. Thanks for saving us from getting completely torn apart. At least we can…”  
  
 _At least we can die on our own terms,_ Shiro hears the unsaid words. _At least we can control how it happens._  
  
No. No way in hell is he letting Lance and Pidge’s end come to _that._ He’d promised. He’d _promised._ Himself, if no one else.  
  
“Yeah? Are you giving up now?” Shiro asks, forcing mild surprise into his voice, into his expression. “This close, and you want to stop?” They blink at him in confusion, and Shiro pushes it further. “Pidge, your father would be disappointed in you. Matt would give you crap over just giving up for _weeks,_ you know he would.”  
  
 _“Don’t,”_ Pidge snarls, a painful and angry order all in one. Her expression is angry, but her eyes are hopeless. “Don’t you _dare._ You don’t get to talk about them like that now. Not now, it’s not _fair._ ”  
  
Shiro feels a paing of guilt at that, but ignores her. “ Lance,” he continues, “I’ve never met your family, but if half the stories you’ve told us are true, I know it’s the same for you. Don’t you want to see them?”  
  
“Shiro, _please,”_ Lance says. He doesn’t look angry—he looks helpless, pained, like Shiro’s driving a knife into his heart and he can’t do anything to stop it. The guilt hits Shiro hard a second time. “You don’t…you don’t get it. Of _course_ I want to see them, but I _can’t_. We _can’t_ keep going forward, not like this. You _know_ that. It hurts too much to think about them when we have to…”   
  
He trails off, and looks away, staring out the window at the open road whizzing past.  
  
“You have to kill us, don’t you?” Pidge says finally. Bluntly, but too quick for Shiro to interrupt her this time. “We have to be put down. That’s the way this _works._ We can’t hurt anyone. I don’t _want_ to hurt anyone. But we’re gonna be those… _things_ now. We can’t take that with us. We can’t hurt you. Or our families. So we _have_ to.”  
  
Hunk makes a frightened noise in the front seat. Keith is grinding his teeth so hard Shiro can actually hear it.  
  
“ _No,”_ Shiro snaps, insistent. “No. Absolutely not. No one is killing anybody.”  
  
“Shiro, we don’t want to hurt anyone!” Lance says. He looks terrified of the inevitable end, and his voice shakes violently. He’s crying, but Shiro can hardly blame him. “I don’t _want_ to die. Pidge doesn’t want to either, I know she doesn’t. But we can’t…I don’t want to get you guys infected too. I don’t want to hurt you, or Hunk, or Keith. I don’t want you guys to turn into those… _things_ either. We don’t want that.”  
  
“Somebody needs to get to Safe Haven and see their families again,” Pidge agrees. Her voice is also shaking now, and the fear she’s been fighting so hard to hide with anger is becoming more obvious in her voice. “Maybe…maybe it can’t be us. But we can at least not hold you back. Or put you in danger. You could still get there if you—“  
  
 _“No,”_ Shiro cuts her off. “No. That’s not how we’re going to do this.” And even as he says it, he knows it’s true.  
  
 _What are we going to do?_  
  
 _Survive. And not just survive,_ live. _All of us._  
  
“Shiro—“  
  
“No. Listen to me,” he says, adopting the ‘leader voice’ again when both Pidge and Lance look ready to protest. “All of you, listen to me.” In the front, Hunk turns to stare at him with wide-eyed fear and shock, and Keith glances at him in the rear-view mirror again.   
  
“This plague—it will only turn you if you die. _Only_ then. As long as you’re alive, you’re still _you_. You’ll still be Pidge and Lance. And I’m not letting _anybody_ die. Okay? That was always the plan, and nothing has changed. We’ll take care of you, and you _will_ see your families again at Safe Haven.”   
  
They don’t look entirely hopeful. “There’s too much risk,” Pidge says. “What if there’s an accident? We’ve already come so close a few times. If me or Lance turn, we’ll be a danger to you. To your families. To _our_ families.”  
  
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Lance agrees. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Even by accident. Even if it means…”   
  
“No,” Shiro repeats again. “That’s not the answer here. Especially if…”  
  
He hesitates. His memories of the hotzone are a jumbled, chaotic mess, but he remembers things from before, and bits and pieces of conversation in the middle. He remembers Samuel and Matt Holt talking about the virus after they’d first been tasked with inspecting the ‘weapon’ Galra Inc. had been championing. He remembers their horror when they realized what it was capable of.  
  
And he remembers one other possibility, too.  
  
The others are staring at him. Shiro realizes he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts, and he shakes his head, struggling to regain focus. “There… _might_ be a cure for this.”  
  
There’s a stunned silence from all of them.   
  
“How…?” Lance asks finally, after an age passes.  
  
“You’re not making this up, are you?” Pidge asks at the same time, suspicion in her voice—but Shiro can see there’s a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes.   
  
“No, I’m not making it up,” Shiro admits honestly. “I don’t know if it’s one hundred percent true, either. But before the outbreak really hit—when it was still contained—Dr. Holt thought there was a possibility to engineer a cure in still-living patients. Matt thought it was possible too. They’d needed better equipment, a lab to test in, patients to study, and then the outbreak got out of control and we were separated. I don’t know if they ever proved it, or found the cure. But they thought it was possible.”   
  
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Hunk asks, stunned. “That’s…that’s _big!_ We could be _telling_ people, or…or _something!_ ”  
  
“I didn’t want to raise any false hopes,” Shiro says. “I don’t know if it’s true. I didn’t want anyone taking stupid, unnecessary risks under the the assumption they could be cured.” He looks around at all of them, before finally focusing on Pidge and Lance. “But I think we need that hope more than anything else right now.”   
  
“So…so if my dad and Matt are alive…”  
  
“Not ‘if’,” Shiro corrects. “They _are_ alive. They’re both survivors. They know what they’re dealing with. Safe Haven is well-known—they’d have made their way there any way they can. They’ll get the equipment they need there to fix this. If there’s a cure, they’ll find it.”  
  
There’s no mistaking it now. Pidge _does_ look more hopeful, and so does Lance. They’re still scared to death, he can see it in both of their faces, but they don’t look trapped by inevitability any more.  
  
“There’s a chance worth taking there, I think,” Shiro says. “It’s a chance _I’m_ willing to take. But to be cured, if it exists, you need to still be alive when we get there. You need to still keep _fighting._ You can’t just give up.”   
  
He stares them both in the eyes. “So. Are you going to give up, or are you going to keep fighting? Are you going to take a chance on living?”   
  
“I could go home,” Lance whispers, almost to himself. “I could see my mom again. My dad. My brothers and sisters. I could…if they made it, I could see them again, I could…they wouldn’t have to be told that I was one of those _things_ …” He’s curling forward by the end, hugging himself with his non-wounded arm, scared but hopeful.   
  
“I want to see my dad again,” Pidge says. Her voice is still a little shaky, but she sounds more determined now. “I want to see Matt again. They’d never forgive me if I just gave up…not if they thought there was a chance…”   
  
She pauses. “But…what about you guys?”  
  
Lance looks up at that. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “I don’t…I don’t want to give up, I _don’t_ want to die, not if there’s a chance, but…this is a big risk for the rest of you. Pidge and me…we’re dangerous, we could still…if something goes wrong, we could still…” He swallows. “Hunk? Keith?”  
  
Hunk frowns. “What?”  
  
“Are you guys okay with this?” Pidge asks. “We’re a whole team, I mean, and…and like Lance said, having us here is still a risk, even if there’s a chance at the end that we could be cured…you’re putting yourselves in danger if you let us keep coming.”   
  
“How could you even _ask_ that?” Hunk asks, incredulous. “Of course I’m okay with it! You guys are my friends! I don’t want you to die any more than you want you to die! If Shiro says there’s a chance for a cure, then I believe him. I’m in.”   
  
“Me too,” Keith adds, without prompting. His eyes are on the road again, but he glances at Pidge and Lance in the backseat through the rearview mirror. “It’s worth it.” Unsurprising. Keith’s remaining family is all right here. Shiro knows he’d fight tooth and nail to keep them alive, no matter the risks.   
  
He doesn’t even feel relief; Shiro knew without a shred of doubt everyone would be on board with this the moment there was a chance. “Good,” he says. “Then we’re still going to Safe Haven. Nothing in that plan has changed. But there are a few new rules now, and they _have_ to be followed to make this work.”   
  
“Okay,” Lance says slowly. “What’s that?”  
  
“You two can’t go running off on your own,” Shiro says, glancing at Pidge and Lance. “Sticking with our group is important for your protection. Hunk, Keith—we’re going to need to always be aware of our team’s location, and do our best to protect them. Not everyone is going to be as open-minded as us. If people find out what happened, there are those that _will_ try to kill Pidge and Lance.”   
  
All of them look frightened at that prospect. Keith’s expression is positively grim at that, but he nods. Hunk swallows, but says, “R-right. So one of us should probably stick with them at all times, right?”  
  
“Right,” Shiro agrees. “We use a buddy system from now on, all the time—especially in settlements or around other people on the road. We do everything we can to disguise Lance’s and Pidge’s conditions. You two need to wear long sleeves all the time, and try not to do anything that will attract attention.”   
  
“My hoodie got shredded,” Pidge says, plucking at the ripped remains of her only long-sleeved garment.   
  
“You can have my jacket,” Keith says shortly. “You’re closest to my size. It won’t look out of place on you.” That would leave Keith in short sleeves until they could scavenge more—not ideal for zed combat, but he wasn’t obviously wounded.   
  
“Good thinking, Keith,” Shiro says.   
  
“I can do most of the actual tech work when we barter for things at settlements,” Hunk offers. “A lot of the ideas are Pidge’s, but I can handle instillations as long as she’s there to feed me the ideas. Then she won’t have to use her arm or expose anything, but we can still earn supplies and not look out of place.”  
  
Shiro nods. “That’s a great idea too, Hunk.” Already, he can see the first stages of both Keith and Hunk becoming fiercely protective of their friends, and knows they’re in as good a position as they can be for this.   
  
“I’ll still do what I can to help,” Lance offers. He looks tired, but determined. “I don’t think I can shoot as well with…with my wrist like this, but I can keep watch, or help around camp, or take a drive shift…”  
  
“Me, too,” Pidge agrees. “I might be… _infected_ …but I’ll still pull my weight. As much as I can.”  
  
“Good,” Shiro says. “Good. These are all good ideas. We’re going to be fine, guys. This is going to work out. Everything is going to be just fine. Just keep fighting, and we’re going to make it.”  
  
This time, they look like they believe it. And _that,_ Shiro is relieved about.   
  
But then Lance hesitates, and says softly, “There should be one more rule.” And Shiro knows, just from the tone of his voice, it’s a rule he’s not going to like.  
  
Everyone stares at him. Lance shifts a little uncomfortably, and stares at his feet the entire time that he talks. “Look, I…I’m not gonna roll over and die. I’m going to keep fighting to get to Safe Haven. I’m not going to give up, or run away. I’ll pull my weight getting there. I promise. But…if something happens?”   
  
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Shiro says automatically.  
  
“This wasn’t supposed to happen either,” Pidge says quietly. “That’s not a guarantee any of us can make.”   
  
Lance nods in agreement. His voice shakes as he finally looks up at Shiro. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, Shiro. If something happens, if something…if something goes wrong…please don’t let me hurt anybody. I don’t want to be one of those things. I don’t want to hurt my friends or my family.”  
  
Pidge nods in agreement. “Same,” she says. Her voice is barely a whisper. “Same. If something goes wrong…just…just don’t let me hurt anyone. I’ll keep fighting, but I couldn’t handle _that._ ”   
  
Shiro hates it. It’s an awful request. It’s a terrible rule.   
  
But it’s not an unreasonable one.   
  
_“If_ it comes to that,” Shiro says, after too long a moment of numb silence, “if something does go wrong—and I’m not saying it will—I promise, I will take care of it.” As painlessly as possible, he promises himself silently. No one will be hurt by this, not even Pidge or Lance.   
  
He meets Keith’s eyes in the rearview mirror for a fraction of a second. Keith’s face is paler than usual, but after a moment he gives an almost imperceptible nod. He understands the request, too. It’s Shiro’s responsibility, but if he can’t—if something happens—Keith will be there to see it through, too.   
  
He hates putting that on Keith’s shoulders. He hates having to make such an awful promise to Pidge and Lance. He hates Hunk’s horrified expression at the rule.   
  
But for all that, Pidge and Lance both seem to relax when Shiro agrees. He knows they’ll do everything they can to avoid that scenario, but it’s a comfort to know that if something _does_ go wrong, they won’t become the threat they’re so terrified of being.   
  
They’ve only been sitting in the car for an hour, but it’s suddenly apparent how exhausting the entire conversation has been on all of them. Pidge and Lance both droop in their seats, worn down physically and mentally, shivering and cold.   
  
Shiro wordlessly puts an arm around each and pulls them against his sides. Both of them are startled by the movement, and Pidge squirms for a moment, trying to get free. Even after everything they’ve discussed, both of them seem almost terrified that just their mere touch will put all of their friends in danger.   
  
But after a few moments, in which Shiro remains perfectly human and alive, he can feel the frightened tension drain out of both of them. Pidge stops squirming to get away, and lets herself lean against his right side, twisting her injured arm carefully so it’s out of the way. Lance settles against his left side with a tired sigh, leaning his head against Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro keeps his arms in a half-hug around each, and after a moment they both burrow closer. The desperation with which they both seek physical contact is almost heartbreaking.   
  
They’d both thought they were going to die today. That thought alone makes him tighten both arms a little more protectively around them both.   
  
They’ll make it through this, though. Tonight they’ll stop to camp somewhere safe when they find a place to break at. Tomorrow they’ll move on, and make it a little further. And the day after they’ll do the same. Over and over, every day, always looking out for each other, until they finally make it to Safe Haven. They’ll survive, and they’ll protect each other, from the undead and the living both, and if anyone tries to take _any_ of his team from him, he’ll make them regret it.  
  
 _What are we going to do?_  
  
 _Take it one day at a time. Survive. Live. Keep fighting, no matter what._   
  
It’s the best they can do, but maybe they still have a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the actual playthrough of Organ Trail I did last year, both Lance and Pidge were bitten. The game suggests you kill infected characters in your party, but they don't actually become zombies until they die, so I just took fastidious care of them until we reached Safe Haven. Because hell no.


End file.
